Who had the most impressive Career Slam?

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"The very point is that the game was slowed down to actually allow the "great" rivalry outside the FO. All the other slams wanted to have their piece of the Fedal rivalry and history."

I've wondered about this too but do you have any evidence or quotes or is it just an educated guess?

Also, I watched the Federer-Sampras match in full this year. Interesting to see Sampras coming into the net at every opportunity even after hitting a nothing shot from the baseline or on a second serve, I'd forgotten how common that was, it's almost unheard off now.

There was nothing in the match really. Sampras looked the better player in my opinion by a tiny amount, but it was just a couple of big points here and there that decided it, for instance a missed volley that cost him a set. Really Sampras was like 2 missed shots away from a deserved win.

tangible proof is tough to provide because no officials want to make it obvious. I have however read from teh USO organisers that they "can" vary the pace of the courts by altering sand levels in the paint.

As I said many times, Woodford has kept tennis balls from the 15 Wimbledon he has played and confirms the increase in tennis balls. I personally have noted a clear increase in Wilson's balls in USO 2010. But all that is confirmed by comment of many players if not all.

Whether this was purposely done to favour a Nadal success outside of clay is impossible to prove but of course, Federer had no rival outside clay so it's pretty clear that the FO and Wimbledon became the most exciting slams and all the others wanted to a share of that rivalry. Fedal was always going to be more exciting than Federer v Gonzo or Federer Djokovic (at that time Djoko was no big name).

Let's not forget that Nadal was the most popular player (maybe more than Fed) and that is what everybody wanted to see. Very much like Borg v McEnroe and tennis is after all a big business.

We fans are interested in the Ws and Ls but those who organise really want the $$ and that is having as many fans as possible in the finals.

When Gonzo thrashed Nadal in AO 2007 and Tsonga did the same in AO 2008, clearly the AO did their best to help Nadal. And the USO certainly did not want to be left

"that is having as many fans as possible in the finals." any finalists and it will sell out, but maybe you should have written this difference to talk about TV viewing figures, and hence advertising cost, and hence TV rights cost.

An equally good theory though is that they there was too much serve dominance and too many short points and they wanted to see more rallies and hence more entertaining matches. Remember, Wimbledon started to slow in 2001 according to many observers and Nadal didn't even play there until what 2005?

Henman Bill wrote:

An equally good theory though is that they there was too much serve dominance and too many short points and they wanted to see more rallies and hence more entertaining matches. Remember, Wimbledon started to slow in 2001 according to many observers and Nadal didn't even play there until what 2005?

Wimbledon started to be noticeably slower in 2002. Not 2001 as you will find it very hard to find references of players and commentators saying anything in 2001. However in 2002, everybody complains about it, essentially down to the introduction of bigger balls.

But yes you are right that at Wimbledon the slowing of the conds started before Nadal and the purpose then was to allow more rallies. But remember back then teh USO was the "medium" pace court were everybody was happy to trade blows, clay and grass specialists alike. However, it's clear that the bounce were still very low and that Nadal was struggling considerably. He won Montreal but never Cincy for instance which is faster. For a long time he never beat a seed at the USO but then suddenly he make one semi and 2 finals, while still going nowhere at Cincy.

Tenez wrote:

Positively 4th Street wrote:
Once more, great stock is placed in the solitary Federer-Sampras match.

I agree that the outcome coudl have been different and that it is in a way irrelevant. What is relevant however, and would have been even if Pete had won teh tight 5 setter is that already then Federer showed he was close to Pete on fast grass. And it 's clear that Federer was very far from playing his best then but those were conditions he learnt his reflexes on and would have been the future of the game on grass like he was on the faster surface of his time Cuncy and USO.

Despite being pretty slow, the O2 works in his favour because of the lower bounce and no player can rush him on this surface, not even at 30. On even lower bounce of grass 1990s, he owudl have been unstoppable. We cannot say that of Nadal of course.

That much I do agree with. Your low bounce comments are interesting, as I think the lower bounce of Wimbledon (relative to the other slams) has been part of Federer's undoing in the last few years - it seems to give him back trouble and his return of serve disppeared against Tsonga this year, admittedly JWT served well but I've never seen Federer look so toothless.